At the Adelaide Test

From the notebook of the ABC's statistician

Wednesday, 17 December

• With the English team refreshed after some R&R at Noosa, all attention turns to Adelaide for the Third Test of this Ashes series. The visitors have an extra challenge to confront at this, the driest of Australian capital cities: heat. The weather forecast warns us of this, and is not wrong. Today reaches 36.2 degrees, a tad warm for me, living at 43 degrees South, and even more so for those resident above 50 degrees North.

• Nonetheless, the locals are not deterred, and when I finally get to the world’s best footbridge, spanning the tranquil Torrens River and delivering us to the front door of Adelaide Oval, there is not much wriggle room; it is packed a full 90 minutes before the Test is scheduled to start. We march, lock-step, to the Oval, and are efficiently admitted after the mandatory bag-search. My laptop, as usual, excites no interest in the yellow-and-black-clad security staff.

• Australia is fortified by the return of the half of the world’s greatest bowling quartet, Pat Cummins (taking over the captaincy) and Nathan Lyon returning to join the ever-present Mitchell Starc. The fourth member, Josh Hazlewood, has reportedly developed an Achilles problem, and won’t be seen in the series at all.

• The upside of the bowling reinforcements is negated somewhat by the omission of Steve Smith, suffering from vertigo. Usman Khawaja, realistically looking at the termination of his Test career, thus gains a reprieve, but will bat at number four, rather than at his traditional opening spot. Travis Head is enjoying himself far too much in the opening role to want to relinquish that position.

• The only English casualty is Gus Atkinson, who, I feel, has bowled without much luck, and been discarded here for Josh Tongue. Brydon Carse retains his spot despite being quite expensive—mainly because he has also picked up regular wickets along the way.

• Australia win the toss and elect to bat, a decision that matches 84% of Tests played at Adelaide, and testimony to its batter-friendly surface over the years. This is way above the rate at other Australian Test grounds, with Sydney (81%) the closest. The MC is 70%, the Gabba at 63%, and the two grounds in Perth a combined 60%.

• Australia start slowly, losing both openers early, which me allows me to report that it is the first time Australia has lost its first two wickets at 33 in any Test. It’s possibly a record that has never been thought of before, and my colleagues look at each other knowingly. I love how patient they are with me.

• I have more to come, however, since Australia then loses its next two wickets at 94. However, I announce proudly, there is one precedent for Australia losing its first two wickets at one score, and its next two at another. It was at my home town no less: In 2016, South Africa reduced Australia to1/2 (Warner), 2/2 (Burns), 3/8 (Khawaja) and 4/8 (Voges).

• Khawaja on this occasion survives these early setbacks, being dropped on 5 in the cordon by Harry Brook, but I am not confident of his extended survival, since his only other experience at no. 4, in separate Tests, resulted in scores of 0 and 2.

• Khawaja and Alex Carey lead a revival, before the former self-destructs on 82. This, however, is his highest score for 20 Tests, and should defer his enforced retirement for a little longer. Carey goes onto a century, which proves fertile ground for analysis, he being a South Australian, a wicketkeeper, and playing a Test at Adelaide. I can announce that he joins Rod Marsh, Ian Healy (2), Adam Gilchrist (3) and Brad Haddin (3) as wicketkeeper century-makers for Australia in Tests against England; and that he joins Joe Darling, Clem Hill, Nip Pellew, Don Bradman, Ian Chappell, Greg Blewett and team-mate Travis Head as South Australian Test century-makers at Adelaide.

• Will Jacks, England’s main spinner, winkles out two wickets today, but his extensive use means he conceded over 100 runs while doing so. Tongue in cheek, I inform listeners that England have more century-makers in this series so far (Joe Root, Gus Atkinson, Brydon Carse, Ben Stokes and Jacks) than Australia (Travis Head and Alex Carey). I’m not sure English supporters see the humour in this.

• Cameron Green, the pin-up boy of Australian cricket, continues his recent poor form with a three-ball duck. My colleague Corbin loves a chronological quartile stat, so I give it to him for Green: Dividing his career into quarters, his average for each one is 33.14, 48.00, 41.62 and … 22.07. Not a great trajectory for someone touted as the future of Australian cricket.

• One bright spot for England is Jofra Archer, who is the model of economy, and with limited recent match experience behind him, ends the day with figures of 16-5-29-3 in Australia’s 8-326.

• The mass migration I observed shuffling over the bridge this morning is confirmed by the official count: 56,298, a record for a cricket crowd at this venue, heading off the 55,317 who attended the same event eight years ago.

Thursday, 18 December

• Today is Usman Khawaja’s birthday, no doubt an important berth in his calendar, but nothing especially to excite us watching on. Except that Ussie is 39 today, which puts him on the edge of the bell-curve that maps the age of Test cricketers. He joins Arthur Mailey (1925), Ernest Tyldesley (1928), Tom Graveney (1966), Ray Illingworth (1971), Graham Gooch (1992), Rangana Herath (2015) and Younis Khan (2016) to celebrate said birthday while representing their country in a Test match. For those playing at Adelaide on their birthday, Khawaja is the first to turn 39, while only Bob Simpson (42 in 1978) and Patsy Hendren (40 in 1929) were older.

• Today is HOT, reaching a scorching 40.9 degrees, the full impact of which eludes me in my air-conditioned comfort. Today will be demanding for batters and fielders alike, with Australia in the field expected to bear the brunt of it.

• Jofra mops up the Australian innings after some early resistance, and ends with 5/53, his first “five-fer” since Centurion (RSA) in December 2019, a dozen Tests ago for him.

• The aforementioned resistance is led once again by Mitchell Starc, following up his Brisbane 77 with 54 here—the first time he has built consecutive fifties in Tests. Australia can well be pleased with their total of 371, adding 45 today for the loss of their final two wickets. Starc is now 75 runs clear of Stuart Broad—see my Brisbane epistle—for most runs in Tests at #9.

• Now it is England’s turn to bat, and Crawley and Duckett safely guide their team to 37 before Cummins strikes, removing Crawley.

• Nathan Lyon comes on to bowl the tenth over of the innings, having only bowled two overs in Perth in this series previously. With his second ball, he disposes of Pope, and four balls later, cleans up Duckett with a superb delivery. In doing so, he moves equal with and then past the great Glenn McGrath (563), and into outright second place (behind Shane Warne) on the list of Australian Test wicket-takers.

• Despite the intense heat, the Australian bowlers, in short spells, are able to work their way through the English batting order, until the fall of the eighth wicket, whereupon Ben Stokes, in anti-Bazball mode, and Jofra Archer guide England in the last hour-and-a quarter to stumps at 8/213. Stokes has 44* off 145 balls in over four hours at this point, which puzzles those of us who heard his pre-match determination to employ the same aggressive tactics as those that brought about England’s demise in the first two Tests. However, I am not complaining. This is proper Test cricket!

Friday, 19 December

• Today is mercifully cooler, and the forecast is for this to continue for the rest of the game. Hallelujah!

• Stokes and Archer become the first English pair to record a century partnership (106) for the ninth wicket at Adelaide, surpassing the unfinished partnership of 85 between Denis Compton and Godfrey Evans way back in 1947. Archer is last out for 51, thereby improving his best Test score for the second match in a row.

• Archer, not especially known for his batting exploits (this is the first time he’s reached 50), joins an elite group of allrounders who have scored 50 runs and taken five wickets in the first innings of an Adelaide Test match: George Giffen (1895), FR Foster (1912), Richie Benaud (1961), Wasim Akram (1990), and Paul Reiffel (1996).

• Not only has Archer made his two highest scores in his last two Tests, but also the two highest partnerships he has been involved in: 70 with Root at Perth and 106 with Stokes here.

• I am able to report that there have been 10 Tests at Adelaide where the team behind on the first innings has won the match, but only one where the deficit was more than it is in this match (85). In 1920-21, Australia beat England after being 93 behind on the first innings.

• Travis Head does his best to ensure there is no repeat of 1920-21, moving to 50 off 72 balls, and doubling that in a further 74 balls. He has now completed 11 centuries, but only the last two, at Perth and now here, have been in the second innings. Normally batting in the middle order is probably responsible for this: Clearly opening has given him the chance to break new ground.

• Head’s main assistance comes from—you guessed it—Alex Carey. The pair are still in situ at stumps, having added 122 together, with Carey moving to another confident half-century. In doing so, he becomes the first Australian wicketkeeper to score a century and a fifty in the same Test. When various correspondents wonder why Gilchrist was not already on this list, I am able to report that his best score in an innings when the other was a century was a mere 37. But like Head’s situation above, this failure to do what Carey has achieved today is more to do with the strength of the sides Gilchrist played in, and the general lack of need for second-innings runs.

• With Head joining Carey as a century-maker in this Test, they join a select group (Don Bradman and Jack Badcock in 1936-37, and Ian and Greg Chappell in 1972 and again in 1972-73) as South Australian players who have made centuries for Australia in the same Test. Note that I said South Australian players, and not South Australians, a nuance not picked up by some of the illiterates who occupy X, who tell me, a Tasmanian, that Jack Badcock was born in Tasmania. As if I didn’t know!

Saturday 20 December

• Travis Head joins Colin McDonald and Steve Waugh as makers of 170 at Adelaide, making this venue the only one world-wide to see as many as three scores of 170. WG Grace made the first 170 at The Oval in 1886, but of the 14 Test scores of 170, Australians have made exactly half of them. 170 is clearly a danger score for those from my country, and extreme caution should be undertaken when approaching it.

• Further research confirms that 170 is now the highest score that Australian batters have been dismissed for seven times, Head’s dismissal on that score today lifting the record from 161.

• There is little else to cheer Australian supporters about the batting of the Australians today, and when Head self-destructs, they lose six wickets for 38 runs to be all out for 349, a lead of 434.

• Zac Crawley, eschewing the high-risk shot-making that had marked his innings in previous Tests in this series, holds firm at one end, but the Australian bowlers gradually work their way through those occupying the other. Some extraordinary catching from Marnus contributes materially to this, particularly his left-hand reflex catch to dispose of the luckless Pope.

• One of Marnus’s victims is Ben Duckett (whom I had predicted, in a silly game we at the ABC play, would be the highest run-scorer from either side in the series). Duckett clubs a four from his very first ball and is out the next, thus joining Chris Broad and Alec Stewart as the only English openers to be dismissed for 4 off two balls in Tests. Australia only has one: Bill Lawry, of all people!

• Crawley finds a sturdy partner in the supremely talented Harry Brook, who makes run-scoring look effortless. Just as English supporters are starting to contemplate the possibility of an upset win, however, I intervene with a judiciously-timed post that changes the course of proceedings. Having noted that since his very first over of the match, way back on Thursday, when he snared two wickets, he had bowled 35 fruitless overs for 109 runs, I sit back and enjoy the turn I’ve thus occasioned in the fortunes of Nathan Lyon: He promptly disposes of Brook, Stokes and Crawley, England’s main hopes for a famous victory, while the score advances by a mere 17 runs. England limp to stumps at 6-207. Lyon’s spell of 8-2-15-3 contrasts sharply with his previous 35-6-109-0. I am more than happy to take credit for this.

• Zac Crawley’s 85 is the highest Test score by a batter who has been stumped by Alex Carey, beating the 78 by Jonny Bairstow at Edgbaston in 2023 (no, not Lord’s!). Bairstow and Crawley are now the only two batters who have been stumped by Carey twice. He has 19 stumpings in all.

• A short investigation reveals that in a Test career of 112 innings, Zac Crawley has only taken part in a fifth-wicket partnership five times, having mostly perished before then. Today he is sixth out, thus breaking new ground. This goes a long way to explaining why, despite playing 30 Tests with Brook, he has now batted with him only twice.

Sunday, 21 December

• Australia bowl tripe in the morning session—disciplined tripe, but tripe nonetheless, and they don’t look like taking a wicket until just before lunch, when Smith, who has made 60 off 83 balls, and looked supremely comfortable, plays a reckless shot off Cummins, and dispels growing sentiment that England might seize a record win. Thoughts have been turning back to Antigua in 2003, when the West Indies chased down 418 in the fourth innings to gain a famous win against Australia.

• Marnus takes—you guessed it!—a left-handed screamer at second slip offered by Will Jacks (47) to snuff out any hope. Starc and Boland, rarely used this morning, wrap up the tail to secure an 82-run win for the home team.

• England move to an 18-Tests-without-a-win streak for series in Australia, starting at the Gabba in 2013 (two draws in that). England’s previous worst streak outside the current one started with Gubby Allen in 1936-37, and was only terminated at the MCG in February 1951, after 12 successive losses. Australia’s worst streak in England is 9, between 1975 and 1980.

• Alex Carey is deservedly made Player of the Match. Travis Head played a fantastic second innings, but Carey backed up his first-innings ton with another major contribution in the second, to go along with six catches and a very smart stumping. This popular cricketer (outside England and Barmy Army hotels) is in form of his life.

• The ABC contingent retire to a hotel in North Adelaide, where a happy reunion with the Test Match Special crew results in a wonderful evening of comparing notes and broadcasting techniques. No, not really, although the “wonderful evening” still holds. The walk back to our accommodation shows the Adelaide Oval and environs, including the $40 million (in 2014) footbridge and the stunning Adelaide Railway Station, at their absolute best. I’m putting it out there: Adelaide is the best cricket ground in the world, and they really do a brilliant event.

• Adelaide Oval by night:

• The world’s best footbridge:

• The destination for those who like giving their money away:

• Adelaide Railway Station: